Vengeance Gives Succor to the Darkness
by LZClotho
Summary: This is my Swan Queen Week 5 (Summer 2015) contribution. It is complete, will be posted in parts, and covers several of the week's trope prompts: Trapped Together, bed sharing, assumed to be a couple, jealousy, and act of true love. Rated T for vivid violence and a kiss at the end of the story. It is completely written and will be posted in 6 parts.
1. Trapped Together

**Author's Notes:** _This is my Swan Queen Week 5 (Summer 2015) contribution. It is complete, will be posted in parts, and covers like 4 of the week's trope prompts in some fashion._ _I'm posting this primarily for the Saturday, July 18th Swan Queen Week prompt, Trapped Together . It also has elements of many other SQW trope prompts this week: bed sharing (Sunday), assumed to be a couple (Wednesday), jealousy (Monday), and act of true love (Friday) in resolving the story._

 _ **Beta Thanks** to dragonwriter for her advice on the title and making me not feel insane for writing this._

 **Vengeance Gives Succor to The Darkness**

.

"This would have to be the year for snow in May," Regina huffed, blowing a dark lock of hair out from in front of her eyes.

They had been doing fine on the drive to New York. Companionable company in the car; Emma letting Regina control the radio as a "driver's choice" personal rule, and she found she liked most of the same music - a little scary, but comforting nonetheless. However, almost as soon as they left Maine and entered Massachusetts, the weather turned gray. Emma flipped to a news station to find out that a rare spring blizzard - for god's sake, the equinox had been two week ago! - would be upon them in just three hours.

"I can keep driving," Regina said.

"No. I changed out the snow tires. We won't be able to drive safely if it gets much more than a light half-inch," Emma pointed out.

Regina glanced several times between the sky and the road. When she put her foot on the accelerator, Emma put her hand over Regina's on the steering wheel.

"There's nothing for it," Emma said. "We'll continue to New York as soon as the weather breaks."

"But -"

"Just pull off into the next hotel you see," Emma cut her off. She was annoyed by Regina's insistence to go after Robin anyway, though she didn't really know why. The woman was entitled to pine after the man, she supposed. Even if he was married. She scoffed mentally at the whole notion of soulmates. She tried to shrug it off. "So, today's drive is cut a bit short. We'll make it up tomorrow."

"A blizzard could stop us for days, Emma," Regina said, even as she searched the highway information signs for the little house symbols that always meant lodging.

"We'll stay next to a highway. Don't go too far into some town. The plows always hit the major thoroughfares first. Don't worry."

Regina fretted, but chose to trust Emma. She was anxious about this trip, and recognized that meant she was probably not thinking clearly. "All right." She spotted a sign indicating a hotel could be found at the next exit in two miles.

Once off the highway, Regina guided Emma's car onto a long hidden drive that wound back into the woods, following the hotel's cheerful pink and blue sign at the roadway, Garnet's Hideaway Cottages. She pulled to a stop before a small tan building with dark brown painted wood slats on the windows, a high peaked roof, levered windows inset in the equally dark brown door beside which hung a sign that declared 'Office'. When she stepped out, Regina had to pull her coat tightly around herself to guard against the icy biting wind whistling through the trees.

"C'mon," Emma said, already moving quickly to the building's front door.

Looking out at the woods around them, Regina frowned. She didn't even see the other lodging buildings, the woods were so dense. She looked back up the road they had come, and it disappeared quickly. If not for the sign, she wouldn't have known there was a hotel here. Hideaway indeed. Hidden away was more like it.

A gust of wind blew her hair into her face.

"Regina!" Emma shouted from the door. "Get in here."

Quickly she complied. Emma remained beside her as she turned back to close the door behind her. When she turned around, she saw what had stopped Emma in place. They had stepped into a small space that had clearly, at one time, been a combined living space and kitchen. What had been the kitchen counter/breakfast bar displayed a sign 'check in'. Behind that, only a few feet away was a kitchen sink. The space for a stove had been replaced by a stool next to a computer set up on the next counter.

That boded well, Regina thought. Someplace still connected to the outside world.

"What can I do for you?"

Emma and Regina both turned from staring at the computer to the bent shouldered gray-haired man stepping in from a back stoop, stomping his heavy boots to dislodge dirt.

"Um, yeah. Hey," Emma said. "We'd like rooms for the night?"

He straightened and Regina realized he was easily more than six feet tall. He made her think of a lumberjack, particularly in his flannel red shirt and a small hatchet tucked in a belt loop. He had a black pen tucked into the breast pocket of his shirt and brushed at it a moment with a faraway glaze in his eyes. Then he scratched at several days growth of grizzled gray beard while leveling his gaze at them. "Well...Now, lemme see if I have something. It's huntin' season, y'know."

"We didn't, but, yeah, I guess." Emma leaned on the counter. Regina stepped up beside her. She felt a need to put her hand on Emma's back.

When she looked up from her fingertips, she found the gray haired man studying them pensively. Then he smiled and nodded, taking a step back to look at the computer screen. "Well, now, yes. I do see. I do have a room for you."

He leaned back and opened the cabinet just above his head, reaching inside. Regina heard metal keys clinking together. When his hand emerged, he came out with a single key jangling on a ring with a hand-made leather tag bearing the number 7.

Stepping up to the counter, he slid it across. "Heah ye go. Room seven. It's just out that door, to the right, and down the pa-"

"We need two rooms," Regina interjected quickly.

"Already trouble on the honeymoon, huh? But sorry. Don't got two. Jus' one."

Regina's gaze narrowed; Emma put her hand over hers on the counter. Emma studied him, then shrugged. "OK. We can just go somewhere else," she said. "C'mon." She tugged Regina back from the counter.

"But there are other rooms here," Regina said. She narrowed her eyes at the man. "I heard other keys in the cabinet."

He shook his head and gave a quick chuckle. "I ain't." He stepped back, reached for the cabinet. "Come see for ye'sef."

Regina stepped around the end of the counter, looking into the cabinet. The empty cabinet.

"OK. Then we'll just be going." Emma slapped the room 7 key back down and put her hand over Regina's on the counter.

"Nearest other place is ten miles. And it ain't as easy to find as my place."

Emma shrugged. "I'll drive." She wiggled her fingers at Regina. "Keys, please?"

Regina handed Emma her keys.

Emma opened the building door only to be caught by a sharp icy cold gust that pulled it out of her hand and slammed it against the outside of the building. Emma and Regina both jumped.

"And theah's that stohm comin'," the man said. He nudged the key toward them again. "Room's nice and cozy. Good place to wait it out." He added, "Got its own fireplace and kitchen."

"Thanks but we don't have any food," Emma said.

"Check the fridge. Small, but stocked." He nudged the key toward her.

Emma frowned.

"Pay on check out in the morning. If you don't like it, OK, I'll comp it. Free of charge." He shrugged.

After staring at his face for several long seconds, Emma snatched the key off the counter. "Fine." She turned to Regina. "C'mon."

* * *

Emma stalked down the path to the right, searching the thick trees on either side, then back to the car. All the while she held her arm out in front to block most of the wind. "Get in."

"Aren't we leaving? You should give the key back."

"We're going to look at this room, and if I don't like something, we're leaving." Regina couldn't help but notice Emma's insistence was the same as the warning she'd given Regina when she went undercover to figure out Cruella and Ursula's plans.

Regina settled into the passenger seat. Emma quickly turned the key on the bug and shoved it into reverse, grinding the gears. Regina winced.

"Em?" She tried again when the blonde didn't respond. "Emma?"

"Yeah?" Emma was not looking at Regina, instead she hunched over the steering wheel, both hands fisted at the top, searching the woods on either side of the dirt path. It hit a rut and the shocks didn't absorb anything.

Regina winced as she protected her head with a hand to the ceiling.

"Sorry, road's not in the best shape."

"It's not really a road."

"Yeah, I got that." The path opened up a little and Emma stopped the car. Regina looked out and saw another simple building. "This looks like it," Emma said.

They both sat staring at it without speaking for several seconds. Then Emma turned to Regina and Regina turned to Emma.

Gazes meeting, measuring, they both spoke at the same time. "Are you sure about this?"

"OK," Emma pushed open her door. The wind from the oncoming snow storm had gotten sharper and icier in just a few minutes. She hid herself behind the window for a long moment before finally standing up. "I'll open it up."

"I'll get our bags."

"No." Emma waved her to stay seated. "Stay here. I want to be sure it's safe first."

Regina quirked. "Safe for the Evil Queen?"

"You haven't been that in a very long time, Regina. Let me do this."

Subsiding at the light amusement in Emma's voice - her intention with the comment being to lighten the mood just a little, Regina watched Emma walk to the small building's front door. She took in the details of the outside, which looked almost identical to the office building, except for the numeral 7 burned into the wood plate to the left of the door.

Emma put the key in the lock, jiggled it a moment, then turned the knob. The door swung inward, revealing only darkness beyond. Reaching to the interior wall, Emma appeared to be searching for a light switch. But when she withdrew her hand, the light level inside the cabin had not changed.

Regina sat up straighter, alertly watching the dark doorway when Emma stepped inside and quickly moved out of view. She jolted to her feet, ignoring the wind whipping her hair around her head, and rushed to the door, slamming both hands into the jamb on either side of the opening. "Emma!"

Inside, the darkness was total. Regina didn't immediately see the blond, then she felt movement and snapped out a hand to grab for it next to her. Her hand slammed into something sturdy but soft.

"Hey!"

"Emma!"

"I was just going to open a curtain, get some light in here. Doesn't appear to have working lights."

"But does it have electricity?" Regina asked.

"I have no idea. Yet." Emma walked across the floor to the faintest outline of a window. With jerky motions, she yanked open the curtains. Daylight, though faint from the storm conditions, cast illumination into the room. "I've got a flashlight in my stuff," Emma said. "Looks like we'll need it."

Regina took inventory of what she could see in the room. The fireplace the man had mentioned dominated the wall opposite where Emma had opened the window. there was a small counter a few feet in front of it. Two chairs sat on either side of a table in the near corner to her left by the door. Angled out from the back wall, next to what was the back door, stood a four-poster bed, the headboard and footboard looking to be minimally stained hand-hewn oak. Above the headboard, hanging on the wall, which seemed to be a very utilitarian white (or off-white; it was hard to tell when the lighting was this low), was a dreamcatcher, the saplings woven together around the outside had been turned so that any branches spiraled toward the center. Several hues and varieties of feathers were interspersed, tied into the sinew webbing.

The window Emma had revealed rattled in its pane, from the wind outside. Regina stepped further in as Emma stepped around her to return to the car.

"I'll be right back," Emma said, her hand brushing Regina's shoulder as she passed.

"Yes, of course," Regina said, distracted. She crossed to the bed, which was covered in a thick woven blanket mixing varying width stripes of black, brown, gray and white. The sheet, visible and flipped outward under the pillows, was a promising crisp white.

"You find anything powered yet?" Emma asked, stepping back in sweeping a flashlight in front of her. Emma flipped it off before tucking it into her pocket.

"I…haven't looked."

Emma nodded toward a bedside table. "Try the lamp."

Regina now noticed the very short squat lamp on the right side of the bed, away from the door. The left side had no matching table. "Oh." Quickly she reached under the shade and pressed her finger to the switch.

Light erupted, almost blinding her because she was staring at the lampshade which bore an image of a long-necked swan in flight.

"All right. Light." Emma walked into the kitchen space. Regina's gaze followed her. She ducked out of sight behind the counter and Regina heard clattering. Then Emma said, "Eureka!"

Emma stood, lifting several things into view. Regina noted a bag of hard rolls, a chunk of deep yellow, almost orange, cheese, and a small bottle of store-bought milk. "Check that before you drink it. It could be spoiled," Regina cautioned.

Glancing at the label, Emma declared, "May 24. At least two weeks. Must've just been bought."

"Why would an out of the way place like this store something as easy to spoil as milk in a guest room refrigerator?" Regina wondered.

"Beats me, but it means we can have grilled cheese, if I can get the stove…" Emma looked around. "There's no stove. Just the fireplace."

"Look in the cabinets for an iron skillet. You can cook it over the fireplace once we get the fire started."

"Fire started?" Emma ventured. "With what?"

"Firewood, matches. It's a fire."

"Oh, right." Emma started opening and closing the drawers and cabinets, obviously looking for matches.

The clattering of wood and utensils assaulted Regina's ears. "I'll go find some firewood."

Outside the air had finally become icy enough for flurries. Regina hid her face from the worst of the wind and looked around on the ground for small twigs and a few larger branches suitable for the fireplace. Though it was still several hours until sunset - Regina checked her watch; it was only three in the afternoon - the lighting was essentially dusk conditions. Turning every so often to check she did not get out of sight of the small building where Emma was, Regina moved around the clearing and first layer of trees and bushes until she had a small armful of wood.

When she returned inside, Emma looked up at Regina and smiled, holding up a box. "I found matches," she said.

"Good, I have some wood." Regina studied the fireplace hearth as she approached it to put the stack of firewood down next to the opening. The bricks were multi-hued, ranging from vaguely tan to a faint strawberry red, to a deep clay red, in no discernable pattern.

"You know how to start a fire?" Emma asked, coming up next to her. Regina shot a glare over her shoulder. "Without magic?"

"I lived in a realm with no electricity for most of my life."

"You had servants. I dated a boy scout once. Doesn't mean I know how to start a fire."

"It's hardly the same thing."

Emma held up her hands in surrender. "OK. OK. You win. Here's the matches. Have at it."

"You could make yourself useful and get our bags from the car."

Regina turned to work at the fire, clearly dismissing Emma, until she heard Emma swear. "What is it?"

"Do you need anything in particular?" Emma asked.

"Yes. What? Why?" Regina stood, dusted her hands together and looked toward the doorway where Emma stood.

"Car's already covered with snow."

"What?"

"Take a look." Emma gestured to the door, stepping aside.

Regina came alongside and looked out. Snow had begun to gather on the ground in short drifts, still falling in thick waves. The hood of Emma's car, and the top, had attracted a great deal of snow. At least ten inches had already accumulated. This is absurd! No snow falls that fast. "It only just started!"

"Yeah." Emma stepped outside.

"Where are you going?"

"I'm gonna clear some of the snow, try to get our things." She shoved her hands into the snow, without benefit of gloves. "Damn this is cold!"

"Use gloves."

"I didn't bring gloves, Regina. It wasn't supposed to snow in MAY!"

Regina rolled her eyes, flicked her hand - and nothing happened. Of course, they weren't in Storybrooke any more. "No magic."

"Right." So give me a hand here."

"Then we'll both have cold hands."

"We can warm them by the fire."

"Which I haven't started yet."

"Well, get on it." Emma strained as she spoke, pushing the last of the snow off the hood, and yanking up on the Beetle's sticky hood catch. "Woot!" she cheered her success when the thing opened. "OK." She rubbed her hands quickly on her coat and reached in, grabbing one suitcase handle in each handle. "Heave! Ho-holy shit, Regina, what did you put in your bag?" The brunette's bag wouldn't budge. Emma set her own bag, far lighter, on the ground next to her, and reached in with both hands to lift Regina's suitcase.

"Never mind that. Get in here." Regina moved out of the doorway. "The snow is starting to come down harder."

"Yeah, I can see that." Emma winced as snowflakes landed on her face and cheeks. Not so thick they weren't melting, but big and fluffy, and COLD nonetheless. Straining with Regina's suitcase weight, she waddled it into their room. Mere steps inside, she dropped it with a clunk and went back out to retrieve her own suitcase, having to shake it free of snow already covering it.

When she returned inside, throwing her suitcase on one side of the bed, she told Regina, "You can move your own."

Regina stalked over and pointed. "Don't put that there! It's wet from the snow, and probably has oils from your car. We have to sleep there."

Emma sighed and pulled her suitcase onto the floor, wincing when she saw the damp spot it left behind on the blanket. She sat down on the bed and bent over, going through her things. Regina continued to stand over her. When she looked up, Regina was staring kinda through her, or past her maybe. Emma turned and realized her line of sight was the bed.

She pointed to the fireplace. "We need that fire or we're not gonna eat or be warm much longer."

Emma could see Regina's throat as she swallowed back something - probably a retort, Emma thought, sighing. This was going to be a long night. She quirked her lips at the brunette, hoping to smooth over whatever it was. Regina turned and stalked over to the fireplace, setting up the kindling and logs. Soon Emma smelled the sulfur of struck matches.

She stood up, her sweatpants in hand, and walked over to the fireplace behind the kitchenette's counter. "Hey, need something?"

"We need paper or something, easy to burn, get a bigger flame going so these will have time to catch fire."

Emma nodded. With a quick dash, she ran back out to the car, buried once more under snow. Kicking through a drift against the driver door, she rummaged inside for papers. An old Storybrooke police report. She'd already filed it in triplicate and been using a copy to get an address last week. Along with the report, she grabbed gas pump receipts and her last repair bill on the bug, before hurrying back inside.

Her hands were shaking as she handed over the paper scraps. Regina eyed them then nodded, crumpling one into a long roll, she lit it at each end, folded it and tucked it under the center of the kindling stack.

The fire was small, but gradually grew. Emma stood beside Regina's crouching form, watching the flames lick at the bits of wood. Tiny flames caught eventually. When Regina rolled back on her heels Emma realized her hand rested on the woman's shoulder.

"Thanks," Emma said.

Regina stood, looking back over her shoulder at Emma's smile. She gave a halfhearted shrug. "You're welcome."

Emma's smile widened. "It'll be a bit before we can cook over that. I'll tend it. You move your suitcase."

Regina looked at her bag beside the door where Emma had dropped it. She frowned as she recalled Emma saying it was heavy. Without thinking about it at the time, she'd moved it into the car with magic.

Now she didn't have that. She swallowed and licked her lips. OK. She bent her knees, grabbed the handle and pulled up. It wouldn't budge. She angled it to drag it across the floor. Other hands joined hers on the handle and a shoulder bumped hers. She looked up into Emma's green eyes. The woman quirked another smile at her.

"Together," Emma said.

Regina looked back down at their fingers wrapped together around the handle and nodded. Several tugs later, she laid it flat on the floor on opposite side of the bed from Emma's. Unlatching it, she flipped the top up.

As though sprung like a Jack-in-the-Box, her clothes, shoes, and several bottles scattered around the opening.

Emma chuckled; Regina shot her a narrowed look. Emma laughed. As Regina shook her head, Emma walked back to tend their fire.

###


	2. Sharing a Room and a Bed

**Part 2**

Regina sighed as she studied the grilled cheese sandwich Emma had prepared. They were well and truly stuck here now. The snow had begun falling as soon as they had arrived. Now, four hours later the sun was almost invisible in the grayness and the snowfall had not abated at all. In fact it seemed to be getting harder and faster, if the rising pitch of the wind whistling past the window was any indication.

"Go on, eat up. I know it's not your favorite, but sorry, we're all out of kale."

Shaking her head, Regina put down her sandwich. Emma sat across from her at the small table. They were in line with the fire, but not next to it, the heat having already begun reaching all corners of the tiny one-room building. "It's fine," she said. "I was just thinking about the storm."

"Yeah," Emma said, as though she felt she had to say something. Though what could she say? A snow storm was not something either of them had expected.

"This was supposed to be just a simple trip to New York."

"Maybe we should have flown," Emma said.

"I'd rather not. I wasn't ever a fan of flying."

"Really? Not even with your friend Maleficent?"

Regina wondered why Emma would mention her training with Maleficent now. "No, she never allowed it again after I fell off the first time."

"You did actually ride the dragon?" Emma asked, her tone sounding kind of awed.

"Yes, I was an adventurous young woman."

"Yeah." Emma picked up her sandwich. "But not any more."

"What does that mean?"

"Just that. You're not exactly the adventuring type."

"And you are?"

"I wandered around for ten years, no place longer than a few months, remember?"

"You liked that life?" Regina had always thought Emma hated it.

"It had its moments."

"I was too busy running after a toddler to think much about adventuring."

"Yeah." Emma's tone was snappish. Regina wasn't going to simply let it sit.

"There you go again. If you have something to say, say it."

"What? I'm agreeing with you."

Regina frowned and picked up her grilled cheese. Taking a bite she decided to change the topic. "The sandwich is good. Thank you."

Emma's smile flashed briefly. "You're welcome."

Regina tried to ignore the warmth pooling in her own belly as she met Emma's gaze.

They finished the sandwiches in a not uncomfortable silence.

* * *

Emma rested her head on her hand, elbow on the arm of the chair in view of the fire. She blinked, thinking the flames were going out and jerked upright.

"Something wrong?" Regina asked.

"Uh, no, nope. Just tired."

"It is late, almost midnight."

"Yeah."

"Emma," Regina said.

"Yeah?"

"The snow hasn't stopped."

Emma nodded. She'd heard the slide of an obviously heavy build up slide off the roof about five minutes earlier too. "Yeah, I know."

"Thank you for fetching more firewood."

She shrugged and saw Regina looking at her jeans hanging by the fireplace. They had gotten soaked in the chest-high snow, and she'd had to change to dry pants from her bag, but they were only a thin material, not suited to the cold. "You're welcome."

"I'm sorry," Regina said.

"Why are you sorry?"

"I'm sorry I convinced you to come with me."

"You'd be stuck out here without me if I hadn't come. And I'm not waiting back in Storybrooke for word and you gone for days."

"Henry would be worried."

Emma injected quickly, "So would I."

Regina's dark eyes swept toward her then back to the fire. Watching the flames dancing in the brown was hypnotic. "I-" Then Regina just shook her head, cutting herself off. She stood. "I'll stack the fire then I'm going to sleep."

Standing, too, Emma nodded. "Sounds like a good idea."

Regina knelt by the fireplace, sorting and placing logs. Over her shoulder, Emma could see the fire banking nicely; it would last several hours. Hopefully until dawn and then they could get the hell outta Dodge, she thought. "You do know how to make a fire," Emma said.

Regina cast a look over her shoulder, up at Emma then shrugged. "Occasionally I'm useful."

Emma chuckled. "More than occasionally."

Dipping her head and accepting the compliment, Regina added a final log then rolled back onto her heels and stood up. "That should do it until morning."

She didn't realize she was lagging behind until she saw Regina across the other side of the bed, staring down at the blankets and sheets.

They were going to have to share the bed; shouldn't be hard, but Regina's head was obviously other places if Emma was reading her darting eyes and pursing lips correctly.

Emma looked away and up toward the headboard. She frowned, seeing the wall decoration for the first time. "Sneaky old man."

"What?"

"He really did think we were a couple. Gave us the equivalent of the honeymoon suite, at least to his way of thinking."

"What on earth are you talking about?" Regina had begun her changing while Emma conveniently averted her eyes and stood now in just a bra and her pants searching through her bag's disarray for her silk pajamas. _Not hard sharing a bed, we're grown women_ , Emma informed herself sharply as Regina's supple skin drew her eye again and again. She forced her gaze up.

"A dreamcatcher," Emma said, pointing it out on the wall over their... the bed. "Kinda hippie for a hunting lodge," she stated.

"Hippie?" Regina asked; she studied the dreamcatcher, and if Emma was reading her expression correctly, teeth pulling at her bottom lip, eyes widening, Regina was growing uncomfortable.

"Drug and free sex culture of the sixties, early seventies," Emma explained. Regina's eyes widened. "I take it you're unfamiliar?"

"You, too. None of us got here until the eighties."

"Yeah, but I went to school here. Had lots of still-hippies as teachers in elementary. A few in junior high. Then the curmudgeons who wished they'd been hippies taught high school."

Regina mused. "Quite the colorful life."

Sitting down on her side of the bed, Emma was surprised it was that easy to distract Regina, who immediately sat down on her side of the bed.

Emma snickered. "Dreamcatchers were all the rage. I think I even made one in art class, during a unit on native American crafts. Most believed it tapped sexual energy, made you more potent."

"That's not at all what they do." Regina was appalled.

"So, the Enchanted Forest had them? What were they used for there?"

Regina nodded. "And they caught and held good dreams, but kept the bad ones away." She glanced toward the dreamcatcher again and Emma watched that bottom lip get chewed again. "I had one above my bed in my...when I was a child."

"Sounds nice."

Regina cleared her throat and brought her gaze back to Emma's. "I outgrew it."

Emma pulled back the covers and slipped into her side. "Neal got me one when we were dating." Regina frowned. Emma shrugged. "Do we ever outgrow dreaming?"

Regina rested back, staring up at the ceiling, arms crossed over the blankets she smoothed. "Just change which dreams we want to come true."

Turning her head, Emma watched Regina's silhouette breathing in the dim light. "Yeah, I guess you're right."

Regina looked at Emma; neither spoke. After a moment, Regina exhaled and turned on her side, adjusting her covers and looking toward the window wall. "Good night, Emma."

Emma stayed on her back, staring up at the ceiling. "Good night, Regina."

###


	3. Sharing Dreams

**Part 3 of Vengeance**

Above the sleeping women, the dreamcatcher's sinews glinted, catching and casting a bit of the fire's glow along its webbing, sparking off an twined intersection.

 _Emma stepped into the foyer of the New York apartment she could now afford because she'd finally made it. She was officially half-owner of Big Apple Bail Bonds. She had become so good at her job, using computer traces to track criminals, she had quickly migrated off the street hunts to sitting behind a big desk in her own office, telling other people where to go to find their wayward subjects. No more bruises. Henry was ecstatic about that, having seen her beat up on one too many occasions. But she hadn't had them for a couple years now, gradually showing her worth in using the new technology that her boss "Brooklyn" Vicuny, that grumpy gus, couldn't be bothered with. She had known that community college course would pay off eventually. She couldn't remember now where she'd taken it; taught by a sheriff, she remembered, in his off time. She glanced down at the shoelace tied around her wrist, a pang of sadness she couldn't explain._

 _She flipped on the light. "Hey, I'm home." Emma frowned when she heard no response, no movement at all; usually she could hear the hum of the TV, even if Henry was wearing his game player headphones._

 _Glancing at the clock, she frowned. It was past six. Maybe Henry had skipped down to to the corner for pizza from Antoine's. She fished in her pocket for her phone and came up pressing the 1 key to auto-dial her son._

 _The call went to voicemail after two rings. Emma sighed. That probably meant Henry was playing Space Paranoids and couldn't hear the ringing over the bleeps and zaps from the game. She'd just head down to Antonio's to collect him. Maybe grab some takeout for herself, she added, hearing and feeling her stomach rumbling._

 _Three flights down and outside on the sidewalk in rapidly approaching twilight, Emma looked toward the south corner of the block where Antoine's was located. She frowned and turned toward the north corner. Something in her gut suggested she go this way instead. She pulled out her phone anyway and called Antonio's. "Hey," she said without preamble, "Angie, did my son Henry come in tonight for pizza?" She pursed her lips and frowned. Henry wasn't at the pizzeria._

 _She was pocketing the phone and just reaching the corner of the block when, in her distraction, she slammed into a body. "Hey!"_

 _"What the-!"_

 _Emma grabbed the arms of a body falling against her, dropping her phone in the process. Dimly she heard the clatter of it against the pavement. But her focus, her whole world, suddenly narrowed to brown eyes. Well, not quite. Her quick peripheral vision and detail skills noticed a pantsuit - black with white trim on the lapels, over a tailored white blouse hugging very feminine curves. The brown eyes were set in an olive face framed by a tumble of dark brown hair, over a small nose and dark lips bearing a tiny scar._

 _"Damn, I'm sorry." She backed up, holding the nearly overset brunette until she regained her footing on her own. "I should've been looking where I was going." She watched the woman dusting her pantleg and adjusting her jacket, and bit her lip, expecting a fiercely blistering cussing out in the next few seconds, once the woman regained her breath._

 _The brown eyes returned to hers. "It's all right if you don't know where you're going. I have no idea where I am. I was looking at the blasted map app-"_

 _Emma frowned deeply but then smiled slowly. "Well, okay then. So we're both a bit at fault."_

 _The dark lips smiled at her; Emma felt dizzy. "Where were you going, dear?"_

 _"I'm looking for my son actually," Emma said then stopped, dropped her eyes and wondered at herself. Since when was she ever so free with personal information? She brought her eyes back up only to find that the brunette's eyes had widened and showed… empathy? "You're son is missing?"_

 _"I got home late from work, thought he'd gone to Antonio's for pizza." She gestured back to the southern corner. "But he didn't."_

 _"What's in this direction?" the woman said._

 _"The arcade's down another block," she suddenly remembered. "I got him his own game apps for his phone, but the kid still likes to hang out in actual arcades."_

 _"Well, let's go."_

 _Emma felt her hand taken by the stranger, warm, soft, but somehow less substantial than she expected for all its strength. The pull on her body was disconcerting. She tugged her hand free and asked, "What's your name?"_

Emma opened her eyes into the darkness and frowned. Snippets of her dream mingled in her fogged brain with the details of the reality. It had felt like she was back in New York. The scents of garlic and pepperoni and the almost constant stream of car noises, from belching exhausts to horns of impatience she could almost still smell and hear. She exhaled. It wasn't a real memory or even a fake one from Regina's gift; Emma had never lost Henry like that in the year they were separated from Storybrooke.

She turned her head and saw Regina asleep, facing away, head propped on her hands on the pillows. And of course she'd never met someone who looked like Regina on the streets.

But there she'd been, and instantly helping Emma to search for Henry.

That was it, Emma decided, that was the meaning of her dream. She and Regina would always come together when it came to Henry. She rolled back to her side and tucked her own hands under her head, noticing the fire was barely embers in the fireplace. But the heat continued to hold in the obviously well-built little cottage.

The dreamcatcher shimmered again in the moon's light, the storm having fully abated for the moment, another intertwining pair of lines glimmering suddenly and a white feather turned gray.

 _"Go see," Tinkerbell said. "What have you got to lose?"_

 _A lot, Regina thought. If Leopold found out… She shivered._

 _"You deserve love, Regina," the fairy nudged with a smile. "We can figure out everything else later."_

 _"But what if he doesn't?"_

 _"He's your soulmate. He will. These things are Fate," her fairy friend gushed, even sighing girlishly. Regina wanted to feel that way again; the same as she had with Daniel. So badly._

 _So she went to the tavern. Not wanting to completely embarrass herself, she wore a cloak, hood pulled close over her hair. She'd thought about completely changing her appearance somehow, but if this was her soulmate, she wanted him not to fall in love with an apparition, but the real her._

 _She pulled open the tavern door, instantly assailed by the smells of alcohol and unclean bodies so overpowering her eyes watered. She brushed her arm across her face, wiping away her tears and looked up. A blonde tavern server had bounced to a stop when the door opened, expecting to be greeting a new customer. Her attire was common to the position, a simple pale blue dress with tight waist and extremely low neckline, showing far more of her feminine bounty than was proper, but no doubt kept the drink requests flowing._

 _Green eyes flickered over her. Wide eyed, Regina hesitated._

 _"Are you comin' in? It might be spring, but it's still warmer in here than out there."_

 _"I...I'm here to meet someone," she said._

 _"Aren't they all?" The blonde rolled her eyes. "Well, if you want to ply your trade, the owner's asked you to keep it outside, you know that."_

 _"Ply my -! How dare you?" Regina felt herself growing angry. She started to draw up, fisting her hands on her hips. "I'm a noblewoman." At least that had always been true._

 _"Then I suggest you turn around and head back to your quiet little life, madam." The woman arched an eyebrow and then dropped into an overly dramatic curtsey. "None of 'em takes too kindly to a no."_

 _She fretted; she had to at least see this soulmate. She cast a glance beyond the serving woman to the rest of the occupants. No one had taken note of her entrance, and no one looked like the least bit of a candidate for a soulmate._

 _Her gaze fell back on the blonde woman. She shook her head. "Well it doesn't appear he's here anyway. I'm sorry to bother you."_

 _The green eyes lifted again. "Who's the one you're looking for? Maybe I can pass him a message for you."_

 _"For a couple of pieces of gold, no doubt," Regina replied._

 _"For a smile," the blonde replied with a shrug. "I ain't seen much happiness. Might be a nice thing to help someone make some for herself."_

 _Regina was startled by that answer. She frowned. "Thank you." She bit her lip. "But I don't have a name…so I can't leave a message."_

 _"Then how about I just get you a drink?" The woman's green eyes crinkled and pale pink lips tipped up into a smile._

 _Regina felt her hand taken by the strange woman, warm, soft, but somehow less substantial than she expected for all its strength. The pull on her body was disconcerting._

Regina blinked open her eyes, studying the view out the cabin window - snow-covered bushes and trees painted by moonlight. She exhaled; nothing to be done about anything until morning. Determinedly she shut her eyes to reality for a few more hours. She glanced around, the fuzzy images in her dream from the tavern blending in and out with the structures of the room. The stale air of the tavern lingered on her tongue and she licked her lips to wash it away. It hadn't been real, she told herself. In reality, she hadn't even crossed the threshold of the tavern and she'd spotted Robin and his tattoo from across the room.

So what was the purpose of Emma in her dream? That serving woman had indeed looked and sounded like Emma, though her dream-self couldn't place a name. And because of her interaction with the woman in her dream, she hadn't seen or found Robin.

But the woman had offered to help her find him.

That, Regina realized, was Emma's purpose in her dream. She'd been thinking about fate and soulmates and how she'd first met Robin, all on a trip with Emma to go find him again.

She rolled her chin over her shoulder and took in the profile of Emma on her side in the bed next to Regina, facing away, slumbering peacefully.

With a sigh, she rolled back to her side and resolutely closed her eyes. She was beating fate; she was. This was just her doubts trying to derail her.

Above the bed, the dreamcatcher shimmered again in the moon's light, another intertwining pair of lines glimmering suddenly and a gray feather tucked in a brown bead turned black as pitch. Outside the snow began to swirl, heavy and thick, wind taking it aloft and circling it about the tiny cabin.

 _Regina paced the floor, snapping at the curtains which she was suddenly, painfully, aware were wide open. "Damn it! Stop."_

 _She snapped her head toward Emma. "I can't. That thing is after me, I know it."_

 _"Well, it's not going to get you."_

 _"Who else? We were told it goes after the one most tempted to darkness. Unless we have a dwarf named Evil-y, last I checked that's me."_

 _Emma shook her head and stepped forward. Regina recoiled, stumbling into the table. "Hey, hey. We are not going to give you up to it. That's final."_

 _Regina fumbled onto a couch cushion, looking earnestly at Emma who sat more calmly opposite her. "So why are we hiding in my office?"_

 _Emma shrugged. "You're more comfortable here. Snow and David are out looking for the thing. After it left the clock tower perch-" Emma cut herself off. "It's just like The Birds, geez."_

 _"You're comparing this situation to an Alfred Hitchcock film?"_

 _"Oh, so you've seen it?" Emma chuckled. "Yeah, no, you're definitely not Tippi Hedren, too blonde for one. And a helluva lot smart-"_

 _"Can we return to the subject at hand?" Regina was annoyed by Emma's penchant for rambling, even though she recognized it as having relaxed the strain of tension in her back. She smiled to take any sting from her command. Emma smiled back; she'd known what she was doing._

 _"What do you know about this...Chernabog?" Regina smiled wider at Emma's continual bafflement about the magical world and its denizens which had been her birthplace._

 _"It feeds on darkness. What else is there to know?" Regina threw up her hands then sank on herself, rounded shoulders, arm loose on her thighs. She sighed._

 _Emma reached across the table, grasping one of Regina's hands. "C'mon. You tell me all the time. Think. There's a way to defeat this thing. We just have to find its weakness."_

 _"It's a being entirely made of magic," Regina started._

 _"Entirely? Not a cursed part-human thing?"_

 _"No. It's… never been human."_

 _"So it's here, now, in a Land Without Magic."_

 _"Technically it's not. It's inside Storybrooke. We have magic."_

 _Emma's green eyes gleamed. "Oh yeah?" She smacked the back of Regina's hand and sat back. At the same time Regina said 'ow' Emma slapped her own jean-clad thighs. Regina was confused, Emma looked like she was about to have a fit. "Oh, hey! Wait a-" Then she shot to her feet and Regina was certain of it. "Oh! Yeah!" Emma clapped her hands. "The town line! Magic ends at the town line!" Emma grabbed Regina's hand, ignored the resistance, and dragged Regina toward the door. "Let's go!"_

 _"Where the hell are we going?"_

 _"We're gonna lead that damn chernan-thing to the town line and it's gonna go boom!"_

 _"You're going to just run out in the street - drag me right into its sights! - and hope we can outrun it?"_

 _"Nah, we're gonna take the Bug."_

 _Regina's eyes widened in alarm, shock - terror, even wider than they had at the initial idea. "That metal death trap couldn't outrun a snail!"_

 _Emma shook her head. "That's where you're wrong. C'mon!"_

 _Regina covered her head and her ears at the overwhelming screeching as she ran for Emma's car parked out in front of city hall. Emma had thought they might have to wave at the Chernabog to get its attention, but just like a damned homing pigeon, it spotted them the second they stepped out onto the circular drive in front of the building and dove toward them. She barely registered Snow and David, in David's truck, parked on the library corner, keeping an eye on the Chernabog which launched itself now from the clocktower perch._

 _Diving right for them._

 _"Get in!" Emma yanked open the driver door. Regina felt, panicking, for the handle on the near door. It pushed outward into her hands. "Get in!" Emma shouted at her, grabbing for her hands, from inside the car._

 _Regina stumbled on her heels getting in, landing awkwardly in the seat. The car lurched forward before she could even settle herself. "Wait!"_

 _"What?!" Emma shouted next to her. "I'm driving! You don't need your purse."_

 _"I need my seatbelt! So do you!"_

 _Emma rolled her eyes, hunched over the wheel, but she pulled on her seatbelt as Regina did the same. "You are insane, sometimes, but I love you," Emma said, glancing quickly through the various rearview mirrors and punching the gas once more._

 _As the car shot forward, Regina blinked. "What?"_

 _The Chernabog had overtaken the car, dropping from the sky directly in front of them. Emma swerved, but the Bug and the Bog collided. Regina screamed; it was on her side! Emma's screamed, "No!" echoed and everything lurched again._

###


	4. Spinning Out

**Part 4 of Vengeance**

Lightning cracked the sky outside, briefly illuminating the interior.

"No!" Two panicked shouts commingled in the returned dark.

Regina bolted upright feeling the bed shaking. "What the hell?"

Panting beside her was Emma, shaking the whole bed in her mad scramble to get off the mattress.

"What the hell was that?" Emma fumbled out of the sheets, legs tangling, falling to the floor, dragging half the bedding with her. "Ow! Fuck!"

Regina put her hand over her chest, using the point of calm contact to consciously focus on slowing her racing heart. She blinked several more times, separating the sharp images in her mind from the dark dull reality of the small cabin. She looked toward Emma, and sighed. The woman was all right, the Chernabog hadn't gotten either of them.

"That's not the way it happened!" Emma barked. She was staggering to stand, hands tugging at the sheets, trying to untangle herself. She leaned on the headboard, finally throwing the sheet away and freeing her feet. "That's not what I said, that's not what you did! You vanished from the car and -"

Emma cut herself off as she realized Regina was looking past her, rather than at her. The shock was expected, but something made her turn around.

The dreamcatcher was glowing, spinning. And rapidly increasing in size on the wall.

Things around the room began blowing around. Emma used an arm to shield her face, reaching the other toward Regina.

Regina grabbed for Emma as Emma grabbed for her. Their hands clasped at the same time they both felt the grip of the portal's effects.

"Grab something!" Regina shouted.

"What?" Emma had grabbed the headboard, but they could both already see it distending in toward the center of the portal effect. She looked around for something, anything else. The door to the cabin stood open.

"Head for the door!"

"What?" Regina turned. "How?"

"Who cares? Go!"

Regina raised her free arm and staggered away from the portal effect; Emma still had her other hand. She tightened her grip. Emma's grip tightened back and out of the periphery of her vision, Regina saw Emma bracing against the swirling air currents, also heading for the door.

Another lighting flash illuminated the doorway. Standing in it was the gray haired man from the office, arms spread as if holding the door open. "Help!" Emma shouted.

"The Darkness likes how you taste," he said. "You can no more fly from your fate than can the Swan."

"What?" Regina shouted. "Stop!"

The man vanished in the next lightning burst.

Both Emma and Regina were so shocked they were unprepared as the portal sucked them off their feet, dragging them away.

Regina screamed; Emma yelled. The magic engulfed and then swallowed them.

* * *

Loud thumps and then silence accompanied their painful drop against a hard surface. Before lifting her head, Regina tested her limbs, relieved to feel Emma's hand still in hers as she flexed her fingers.

"Hey," Emma's voice came to her muffled, but the tone suggested Emma was about as intact as Regina was. Regina rolled onto her side while opening her eyes. Few details of their immediate surroundings. The hard surface they had landed against appeared to be rock. There was a vague source of light, because she could easily make out Emma struggling to her hands and knees alongside her. The hand slipped from hers and then laid against her shoulder, shaking it gingerly. "Hey, Regina, you… you all right?"

Regina swallowed once, testing her jaw and her throat, didn't find anything particularly felt amiss, and spoke, her voice came out gravely, "I think."

"Therefore you are, huh?" Then Emma rambled on. "Oh, wait, let's not put Descartes before the horse, huh?" Regina frowned and stared up at Emma who was laughing.

"Have you lost your mind?"

"I just fell through a fucking portal - AGAIN! Of course I've lost my mind!"

Regina rolled her shoulder muscles experimentally as she used her arms to push herself upright. Emma's hands were on her momentarily, but she shrugged them away.

She brushed her hair out of her face, pushing aside the brief embarrassing thought that she must look a fright.

"So, where are we?" Emma asked.

"How am I supposed to know?" Regina grumbled. She looked down to notice that they were both still in their chosen sleepwear. Without thinking she snapped her fingers, her body engulfed in a blinding red flash.

"What the hell?!" Emma barked in surprise when Regina stood up wearing a blue belted vest over a white cotton linen shirt, and tanned hide leather pants with knee-high boots.

"At least we know something about where we are - there's magic here. So we're not in the woods of Massachusetts." Regina said.

Emma stood slowly.

"You might want to change out of that," she indicated Emma's thin linen pajama pants. "It's likely impractical attire for here."

" _Where_ is _here_?" Emma grumbled. "And when can we catch the next portal back home?"

Regina shrugged. "I have no idea. Now, change your clothes so we can find our way out of here. Just think 'I need something practical.' Your magic will figure out the rest."

Emma sighed, snapped her fingers and reappeared from a fading white flash now wearing a simple gray cloak and blue dress. "Seriously?" She sighed.

"That's obviously what's appropriate for here. I'll teach you more intentioned magic later so you can choose your own clothes. But we probably don't want to stand out."

"Shouldn't we, like, stay put? I mean the portal did drop us here. Maybe it'll come back to pick us up."

Regina shook her head. "Did it any of the _other_ times you fell through?"

"Well," Emma thought aloud then admitted, "no."

"Then we walk. Figure out where we are. Then we will find our way back."

By mutual silent agreement they headed toward what appeared to be the source of light, figuring it had to be an exit to the caverns where they were currently. After a while of trudging, quietly Emma said, "Did I imagine it, or was our hotel host at the door just before the thing grabbed us?"

"I saw that too," Regina admitted.

"Who do you think he was really?"

Regina considered everything about the man she had seen. "He...he repeated something Rumple had said to me once."

"But Gold is back in Storybrooke."

"I didn't say he was Gold, but...he…" She trailed off, recalling the encounter with the hotel owner before in the office. "He knows the stories."

Emma stopped. "You… maybe, but me. I'm not in the storybook."

"You are. Now. After your little trip with Hook in Zelena's portal."

"But I put everything back the way it was! Nothing changed!"

"You brought Marian back here. You brought the Ice Princess-"

"OK. Okay, yeah. You're right. I'm an idiot." Emma held up her hands.

"Yes, we did agree on that."

"This _isn't_ my fault." Emma pointed out. "I bet that guy-"

"Oh, but which of us _insisted_ we had to stop? I could have kept driving."

"There was about to be a _blizzard_ , Regina." Emma put her hands on her hips. "But if we're gonna get to it, you're more to blame for this than I am."

"How so?" Regina was appalled.

"Who came to me _begging me_ to leave town with her?"

"I didn't beg! I asked." Regina went on the defensive. "Besides we also came out to look for Maleficent's child - the one your parents defiled with _your_ potential darkness!"

"Why didn't _you_ promise Maleficent, get yourself back in your ex-girlfriend's good graces?"

"What?" Regina spluttered. "My - Male- what?"

"The dragon was your girlfriend. Are you sure you're not even this magical kid's 'father'?"

"That's not possible!"

"Why? You were lovers! I saw her fawning all over you while you were undercover with them!"

"Maleficent and I had a relationship, yes. A _century_ ago!"

"You're not that old!"

"Emma, shut up. We'll find Lily and we'll _both_ get her back to Maleficent."

" _I_ need to make that up to Lily. _I do._ It should've been _me_ ," Emma retorted. "You're mission is your soulmate - your happy ending!" Emma pushed off the wall and stormed toward Regina before Regina could say anything, though she opened her mouth. Emma interrupted, "I made a promise!"

"I did too!"

"What?"

"To keep you from falling into Rumple's plans!" Regina shot back. "I made a promise, Emma."

"I know, you told me. To Snow."

Regina shook her head. "I swore to Rumple he wouldn't get to turn you into a monster the way he made me," Regina grabbed Emma's arms and shoved herself off. "I need you."

"To help you get your happy ending, I know, I told you, that's my job, and I will see it through."

Regina moved away from Emma, clutching her arms around her middle as if she could hold herself together that way. "I don't care about that."

Emma followed. Just as she grabbed hold of Regina's arm, to demand what she did care about then, they both stumbled in their footing. The ground had changed from stone to grass. Separating, they stared up at a clear blue sky, gazes flitting around at a grassy dale, a line of trees and bushes a few dozen yards away. Exposed rocks from the cavern formation jutted up or had tumbled down from the mountain face that they now saw towering above and behind them.

"What in the -?" Emma cut herself off as she gaped at the sights around them. "Where are we?"

Regina, who had dropped her eyes from up to down, put her hand briefly on Emma's shoulder. Then she pointed when Emma turned her head.

In the valley below seemed to be nestled a scattering of thatched roof buildings; a town.

"Let's go find out."

The two women started down the hilly incline, occasionally reaching back or forward to offer a hand to steady the other. But each was deep in her own thoughts.

Regina had encountered a number of realms in her travels to learn and gather magic to eventually become powerful enough and have all the necessary ingredients to cast the Dark Curse. She was going over and over in her head, cataloging the foliage, and the scents, and the fauna scurrying away from them, trying to determine if she had ever been to this particular realm before.

Emma on the other hand was trying her best to ignore the foliage and the fauna, thinking about her nomadic, but much more civilized, city life. She looked at her hands, thinking about magic, thinking about the "Savior," thinking about how all of it could have been different. If her parents hadn't taken her darkness and put it in Lily where would she be right now? She glanced toward Regina, noticing the easy way the former queen moved through this land, and wondered if either of them could ever have really beaten Fate, as they boldly proclaimed the purpose behind this mission to right others' wrongs.

The path they were on seemed to become more defined the lower they went. Near the bottom, deep in thick trees on either sides, their path intersected with a rutted cart-wide dirt road leading off in either side direction. Regina looked again at the cluster of buildings and, despite the thicker foliage, chose the pathway to the right. "This way should get us down there."

Emma thinned her lips and said nothing.

"Do you have a better idea?"

"No."

"If you have an idea, share it."

"I'm an idiot remember."

"No, you're not. You're good, Emma Swan. To a fault sometimes, but you are extremely good."

"I was never a very good thief," Emma said. "Lily was better at it. Neal was way better at it. I fumbled through everything. What if all of it was fate? I couldn't get away from any of it."

"I told you, we can make this that day," Regina said. "We can beat fate. Together."

"I'll admit we can do a lot of things together: stop a destructo-diamond, cause an eclipse, drive off a Chernabog," Emma rattled off the list. "But fate...Maybe that's too much. Too big."

"I can't believe that," Regina said. "You've broken so many of the other 'rules' I thought governed fate. If anyone can break the cycle, it's you."

"Elsa said I had to accept myself, both the good and the bad, in order to control my magic," Emma said. "What if the bad is even worse than I've experienced already?"

"You mean, too much to handle, to counteract? You think you're like me, easily seduced into evil, because you couldn't recognize it?"

"No. We're alike because you didn't see it. Just as much a pawn as I am, was...You didn't."

"Oh, I did, Emma. That's been my problem. I have known what evil truly was, all along. I'd seen it face to face. I thought it was the answer to everything. And I embraced it."

"But you changed."

"Not for a very very long time."

"I told everyone that Author or no author, I wasn't going to turn dark."

"And so you won't."

"But what if it's all false bravado?"

"It's not. You can't think that way."

"It's true."

"False bravado is ego driven."

"Is it?"

"Oh yes. Your lack of it is why I prefer you over the two idiots."

"You-" Emma had to stop speaking as Regina pulled her to one side, slapping a hand over her mouth.

"Shh," Regina hissed in her ear as her body pressed into Emma's side in the small space between some trees and a bush.

Over Regina's palm, Emma's gaze darted around their location, seeing now that they had come up near one of the outermost buildings of the small town. There were people moving about in the town center just beyond. It looked like stalls of vendors were assembled like an open air market. In the small sliver from their vantage point, Emma saw meat slabs hanging over one stall, cabbage or lettuce, and red rounds she assumed were tomatoes, in another. She heard the jangle of metal among the hum of bargaining voices and saw a donkey-led cart rumble through the middle, its contents books. Live chickens squawked, and a high-pitched voice yelled an apologetic "excuse me!" But everyone simply went about their business.

Regina let Emma go. They both adjusted their clothing. "Now, let me take the lead, all right?"

Emma nodded. Regina led the way into the open air market.

###


	5. The Bookseller

**Part 5 of Vengeance**

Regina looked around at the market stalls, wrinkling her nose as she deciphered smells and identified some of the rarer items it seemed people had available for sale. Crystals and rune sticks, and bits of tanned hide bags obviously containing powders for blessings and rituals, hung from one cart's spokes. Not wanting to look too obvious, Regina meandered their way, skimming past carts with cakes, sweetmeats, jerky, and fruits, glancing at the items before moving on, waving off the interest of the vendor. She turned at a gasp and saw Emma in the process of placing a cake that looked a lot like her favored bearclaws in her mouth.

"Emma!" she hissed.

"A piece for that," demanded the vendor.

"A piece of what?" Emma asked, chewing.

Regina glanced around and caught sight of someone passing coinage to a vendor. Quickly she closed her eyes, put her hand in her pocket and stuffed the hard metal coin she found into the vendor's hand and pulled Emma away from the cart. "What did you think you were doing?"

Nearby a startled vendor looked down at his empty hand when the young woman pulled her hand away from his. An argument ensued as she walked away. "You didn't pay me!"

Answering Regina, Emma looked down at the sugared cake bit left in her hand. "I'm hungry."

"This is a market."

Emma hurriedly chewed and swallowed. "You paid him. What's the problem?"

"I had to magic it from someone else," Regina pointed out under her breath.

The woman and vendor were in the process of a moderately loud argument now, drawing the attention of others in the market. Eventually though the woman and man agreed she must have dropped the coin and the two got down on their hands and knees to look for it, without coming to blows.

"Oh." Emma pursed her lips and grimaced. "Sorry."

"I'll figure out something," Regina said. "But I need to see some things first."

She finally stopped them, Emma thankfully keeping her hands to herself this time, in front of the crystals and powders cart. She looked around, not seeing the vendor. Perhaps he had been drawn away by the commotion, she thought. She looked at the markings on the bags and a few of the vials, examining the crystals and determined she had been here to this realm at some point; many of the products were familiar to her. But the time period still seemed a bit early. The markings on the coinage she had used to pay for Emma's purloined pastry had been unfamiliar.

"Seeing something useful to get us home?" Emma asked.

"No, but I'm beginning to get an idea of where we are, if not when."

"When?" Emma groaned. "Is this the Enchanted Forest? Am I going to yet again screw up my own history?"

"I thought you put everything to rights," Regina reminded her.

"You know what I mean," Emma groused.

"Yes, dear, I know what you meant." Regina put down a bag of powdered burdock and dusted her hands on her pants. "Let's move over to the shade."

She pointed Emma to a long log set out in front of a building. Inside could be heard some laughter, even a little singing. Emma leaned back, hands cupping the remains of her pastry.

"Hey," Emma said as Regina settled. "You want a bite?"

"The sugar will just make us hungrier," Regina said.

"Oh." Emma started to lift her arm to throw it away.

Regina caught her hand. "No. Go ahead and eat it. I bought it for you."

Emma pushed the rest of the pastry quickly in her mouth, chewing quickly, obviously before Regina might change her mind. Regina sighed, rolled her eyes and smirked at Emma. "You eat like a child."

"You've said that before. It doesn't really faze me," Emma said. "I appreciate food."

"That you do," Regina said. "You often eat three or four slices of my lasagna when you're over with Henry for dinner. He doesn't even eat that much."

Regina fell silent at her own mention of Henry.

Emma's hand, grubby now with sugar residue, settled over Regina's. "Let's get back on track to getting home."

Looking up into Emma's tremulous smile and earnest green eyes, Regina nodded, pushing aside the pang of missing their son. Slapping her hands against her own thighs, she stood. "You're right."

Emma stood. "So what are we looking for?"

"We need to find someone who knows the lore of this land," Regina said.

"How about the bookseller?"

"A _book_ seller? There aren't books in this time period, just parchments."

Emma, however, was pointing and already moving. "No, there's a _bookseller_."

Regina saw what Emma saw: a cart rambling on rickety wheels, the bed filled with books - actual leather-bound tomes, just as it rocked and rattled out of sight.

"Come on," Emma said and grabbed Regina's hand. They started to run.

* * *

When they rounded the corner of the building, the road stretched out before them. And there was no cart anywhere in sight. Emma put her hands on her hips, fisting them and grumbled. Regina looked to where the road disappeared over a rise. Emma crouched to the ground, studying the ruts. "The damn thing was on its last legs, wheels, whatever. Where could it have gone?"

Regina's gaze caught a tiny dust mote kicking up, then another, then another. And they were appearing further and further down the road beyond the hill.

"It's right there!" Regina said. "Come on."

"Where?" Emma spun around, following Regina's pointing finger and squinted. "There's nothing there, Regina. It vanished."

"It's invisible." Regina closed her eyes and pulled a small crystal from beneath her cloak. "Look." She held the crystal out.

Concave and convex faces on the crystal still somehow made images visible on the other side, Emma realized, squinting into it, resting her head next to Regina's outstretched arm. She could see the trees and the road cutting through them. She grabbed it when she spotted something she thought was moving. "Hold it steady." And suddenly, yes, there it was, the cart, laden with books, getting further and further away with every roll of its wheels. The driver, hunched over so all she could see was his back in a brown tunic, adjusted his seating, and lifted his right hand. In it was a gnarled wood piece. A wand? No. She squinted again. "It's a pen!"

Regina pulled down the crystal and grabbed Emma's arm. She made a full gesture with her other hand, encompassing both their bodies. Emma and Regina were engulfed in a red cloud; Emma closed her eyes.

When she opened them, Regina was already shouting, "Stop!" beside her. They stood on the road and the donkey-pulled cart was rapidly coming toward them.

The hunched driver's face could now be seen. Despite the hunch, which Emma realized now was affected and not a malady of age, the driver was young, probably in his young twenties. He had a beard and mustache, gray colored, that covered his face, but the youth Emma found was in his eyes, which had snapped up at Regina's commanding tone.

Then there was fear darting in those eyes between Emma and Regina. Was he recognizing them, simply afraid for something else he had done and feared they were authority figures? Emma couldn't decide. But there was a way to find out. She stepped back as the cart neared and yelled for Regina to move aside.

Then she watched the front edge of the cart, raised her arms as if she was going to fall backward. But instead, she grabbed for the cart side as it passed her, just behind the driver's slat seat and hauled herself into the wagon. She crouched behind him, getting her bearings and just as he turned, realizing she was in the cart with him, she sprang up, grabbed him bodily around the shoulders and flung them both off the cart, rolling over and under him, holding on as they tumbled into the ditch alongside the road.

Regina ran toward them. Emma was struggling to hold the young man in place - for she now felt the ungainly lankiness of him underneath the cloak to confirm her suspicions. She dragged on him as she gained her footing. Regina came to a stop a few feet away. The cart, the donkey scared and out of control, tumbled into the ditch a few dozen yards further on. The donkey squealed and cried caught in the traces, and the wheels creaked and spun noisily in the air. The books that had been loaded in the back of the wagon were scattered across the road.

"What on earth!?" Regina yelled. "You could have been killed!"

"Got your bookseller for you," Emma said. She pulled down the cowl on the cloak and in the process dislodged his fake beard and mustache, revealing a black-haired young man.

"Who are you?" Regina and the young man shouted at the same time.

"Let's start with who's in charge here," Emma interrupted. "She gets to ask the questions."

Regina stared at him. He was older, but curiously he looked a lot like Henry. It was there in the tilt of his jaw, the shape of his cheeks, the point of his chin. "I'll ask you again. Who are you?"

"My name is Taliesin."

"Explain how you make your cart invisible."

"Invisible?"

"Can anyone else see you? No one else reacted to your passage through that town."

Taliesin shrugged. "You're the first people to even talk to me. I drive, and I ride, and I write down what I see and hear."

"You're the author?" Emma asked.

"My name's not Arthur. I told you, my name's Taliesin."

Emma narrowed her gaze, scrutinizing his face. Then she pushed off from her grip on him. "He's telling the truth."

Regina held out her hand. "May I see your pen?" He gave her a confused look. "The stick you write with."

He looked down at his pants then back up. "I'm not supposed to let anyone else use it."

"I don't want to write with it, I just want to see it."

He swallowed, lifting the implement out of the pouch tied securely to his waist. He kept hold of it as he lifted it up to where they could see.

Emma picked up a book from the ground. It was a rougher bound version of the blank books in the Author's house, of the Once Upon A Time book that had guided Henry to bring her to Storybrooke. She opened to a blank page. "Write something," she said.

"About what?"

"What was happening in the town back there. A market day," Regina said.

"I don't write about those."

"What do you write?"

"Battles and kings, and new people." He brightened suddenly. "I could write about you."

"We'd rather you didn't," Emma said quickly.

"Why not? You're interesting. Everything else is just the same, everywhere. Where do you come from? Is it far? How many days did you travel? You say you could see me. But I've never been seen or unseen. How is it possible? Are you druids, priestesses, users of magic?"

Emma shook her head at all that until he reached the last word. She shook her head vigorously. "What do you know about magic?"

"It's unusual."

Regina nodded. "That it is. Do you possess magic?"

"No, but I write about people who do."

"Who? Who do you write about?" Regina looked at another book as she picked it up from the ground. This one had writing in it. She scanned for names, recognizing the scribed language as pre-form Gaelic, one of the languages she had learned in tutelage with Maleficent.

"That story's about Amadis. He ruled here before Uther."

"How'd you meet him?"

"I didn't. I met a bard who told stories of him. Amadis was before my lifetime."

"So you can write about people after their death?" Emma asked, running her fingers through her hair in agitation as she tried to both think quickly and process what she was hearing. None of the names rang any bells with her.

"And before they're born, too. If I find a seer." He sounded proud of that. Emma thought about the fact that her role as Savior had been written in a book before she was born, too, and she frowned.

"But you said that these people don't see you."

"I listen," Taliesin said. "I'm very good at that."

"How long have you been writing, Taliesin," Regina said. "You're not very old. Who taught you to write?"

Here he frowned. "I have no idea."

"No idea how old you are, or no idea who taught you to write?"

"Neither? Both, I guess?"

Regina grabbed Emma's hand from running through her hair again. "Taliesin, please don't run away. We still need your help."

"But I'm supposed to be in the next town by nightfall."

"You have a schedule?"

"I have to be there."

"What's going to happen?"

"I don't know," he shrugged. "I'm just supposed to write it down."

Regina asked suddenly, "Could we ride with you?" Emma looked at her like she was crazy. The brunette shook her head. "We can help you right your cart, calm your donkey."

Taliesin looked over at his cart. Emma saw the broken wheel. "We'll help you fix your wheel," she added.

Emma looked at Regina, then wiggled her fingers. Regina rolled her eyes at the childish communication, but she wiggled her fingers. In a trice the cart was upright, the donkey off the traces, standing on the roadside cropping at the grass, the books were stacked neatly in the cart bed, and the broken wheel had been replaced by an unbroken one.

Taliesin exclaimed, "You have magic, what do you need me for?"

"We're going to need more than magic to get home," Emma said. "If you're who we think you are, you're our key."

"I get to be in the story?" Taliesin asked. "Hop in."

Emma and Regina exchanged looks, but clambered into the back of the cart, making seats for themselves among the book stacks. Taliesin patted the donkey, fed it a carrot from inside his cloak and led it back to the traces with a pat to its withers. Regina studied the animal, which seemed quite ordinary, brown and gray with a short patch of white in the middle of its chest. Before Taliesin turned it, it cocked its head and seemed to meet her gaze, showing its broad flat teeth.

"Damn donkey likes you," Emma said against her ear.

"What?" Regina startled. "Oh."

Emma pulled Regina down into the cart as Taliesin climbed aboard his driving plank and whickered. With a lurch, the tiny party was off.

Regina jostled into Emma's shoulder, and the blonde bounced against her. They tried to separate, only to have the cart's motion throw them together again. Finally, Emma just sat back, spread her knees, and motioned between them. "Come on, sit here. I'll make sure the books don't fall on us."

Biting her lip, Regina moved between Emma's knees, feeling the woman's thighs under her hands, and soon the woman's chest against her back. Arms wrapped around her arms and chest. She stiffened, found that only made her back hurt, and so relaxed reluctantly deeper into the soft body behind her.

"Do you think he's really the Author?"

"All this certainly suggests he's one of the Authors," Regina whispered back. "But he's not as knowledgeable about the job as Isaac was."

"Maybe that grows with time," Emma suggested. "Taliesin's kinda young."

"Maybe Isaac broke the rules and learned too much, took on too much power."

"So we probably shouldn't get Taliesin to write us a way home, huh?"

Regina frowned. "I don't know."

###


	6. The Beginning and The End

**Part 6 of Vengeance**

The cart reached the next town by nightfall, though for the last several miles Taliesin fretted at the quick pace of the setting sun. He never articulated what he expected to happen in this town at nightfall, but it became clear to Regina that the young man was listening to some instinct in his head.

Shortly after he drew up the cart in the center of a quiet town square, he leaned back, grabbed a book, and lifted his pen from its pouch. He cocked his head, listening. Regina noted crickets and the whoosh of prey birds, and the snick of rodents along the ground. A sudden cry, toward which both she and Taliesin jerked their gazes, preceded the screech of a hawk flying fast out of some bushes, a small rabbit in its talons.

About an hour ago she and Emma had switched positions and the blonde slept deeply in Regina's arms, not awakening to the sounds, exhausted. When she looked up from brushing a lock of Emma's hair from her face, Regina caught Taliesin studying them. His pen was poised over the page. Without a word he moved it slowly left to right. She could see ink darkly seeping into the thick parchment, but could not make out any of the words. Her head grew heavy and her eyes closed when her temple pressed against Emma's shoulder.

* * *

Another hawk screeching rattled Regina's nerves awake. She clutched instinctively and felt Emma still in her arms. She turned her head, pressed her face into the woman's shoulder, which twitched.

Taliesin still sat on the driving plank, a book open on his lap, the pen moving across the page, line after line. Regina looked around to see what he might be recording. A door to one of the crofts around them in the town creaked inward and Regina suddenly realized that a lot of doors to the homes were creaking inward, dark figures mostly cloaked in shadow, doing the pushing. They were bulky these shadows and Regina blinked, making her eyes adjust more quickly to the low light.

When she realized that they were armed men, she jerked upright, dislodging Emma and startling the blonde awake as well.

Soon the air filled with screams and a fire had been started in a hay pile, then caught a home. "It's a raiding party!"

"Angles," Taliesin said matter of factly, quietly, still writing.

Emma bolted to her feet at the sound of a woman's screams.

Regina grabbed her. "Where are you going?"

"To stop this," Emma said.

"We can't interfere!" Regina said.

"I can't stand here and do nothing," Emma snapped back.

Regina exhaled. The screams were coming from more than one home now. She closed her eyes. She'd known this treatment. She felt Emma's hand grabbing hers.

Looking up, she found green eyes searching hers. "All right," she said. "But let's try not to be seen."

"Magic then?" Emma asked.

"Can you poof in and out of any place yet?" Regina asked. She shook her head. "We'll have to walk in, assess each situation, and then use magic."

"No! No time! These women are being raped, Regina! You know what that's like!"

Dragged by Emma, Regina stumbled out of the cart; Taliesin's voice called after them. She looked again to Emma and bit her lip, nodding tightly. They were really going to do this.

She stepped toward the nearest croft and into the broken doorway. On a hay stuffed mattress, a huge man in black mail and a helmet over his features, had already tossed the pale woman onto her back, ignoring her screams as he rutted.

Regina lifted her hands, grabbed him with her magic and flung him backward out of the doorway. He flew through the air, passing right through the cart as if it wasn't there and landing in a heap on the far side of the clearing. Emma had done something similar with a different attacker. Regina saw his body arcing into the air before coming down. She winced, seeing his windpipe was crushed, his face covered in blood.

She swallowed as the woman she had just unburdened stumbled to the doorway of the croft, not seeing Regina, only seeing the two fallen men - and another flying through the air, blood flowing from his abdomen as his entrails fell free of his body.

Regina rushed toward the house she'd seen that man emerge from only to see the faint white poof of smoke of Emma vanishing. "Emma!" _Damn it, where did she go!_ She turned around in place, looking for another sign of Emma's presence in a croft.

There was a scuffling in the darkness of another broken doorway across the way. Regina snapped her fingers and grabbed hold of Emma's hands as she raised them. The woman wasn't touching anything, but the moment their hands touched, she felt the magic pulsating in them and then saw the body ripping apart on the ground, lurching away from another pale nearly naked young woman.

"Emma! Stop!"

Emma turned and Regina gasped. The woman's green eyes were gone black as pitch, swirling. _The Darkness!_

"No! Emma!" Regina was flung backward.

"Either help me or get out of the way!"

Regina got quickly to her knees and then her feet. More bodies of men were flung out of the homes onto a growing pile in the middle of the square. Emma emerged from the croft, stepping through a trail of the spreading fire. A hand lifted and she flung a thick line of the flames at the pile of bodies, incinerating them.

Regina lifted her hands, the men had been stopped, but Emma was still creating thick black smoke as the bodies burned. She saw it begin to take a shape. Swirls, ribbons, rising into the air, rising from the bodies, joining with the fire from Emma's magic. She'd never seen anything like it.

"And vengeance gave succor to the darkness," Taliesin said. "Giving it shape and purpose."

Regina saw Emma faltering. Something was wrong. "What do you mean? Stop it!"

"This is where it starts."

"So stop it!" Regina demanded. She hurried toward Emma who had dropped to her knees, grabbing the woman around the shoulders to prevent her falling face first into the hard packed dirt to be consumed by the fire she had created. "Emma! Emma, don't. You have to stop this."

Emma's eyes blinked open, a vague stupor showing in graying green eyes. Her pallor was sickly. "R'gina." She cracked a smile, showing teeth blackened and writhing with the seething energy of The Darkness. Regina jerked in revulsion and Emma fell back against the hard packed earth.

She looked at her hands, then at Emma on the ground in the grips of The Darkness. She was shaking, but she pushed everything she had into grabbing Emma's arms, willing her magic to find Emma's. The Darkness swirled angrily around both of them. She felt it pulling at her skin, her hair, her very bones. She gripped Emma more tightly, falling supine to hug their whole bodies together.

 _She couldn't let Emma go dark; she just couldn't. Henry and Emma had shown Regina there was another way. She could not let Emma lose her way now. Not when they were so close..._

Regina awoke, panting on the bed. Hair scattered across her lips and caught on her teeth. She coughed and shook, sobbing as she realized she held Emma in her arms. Emma wriggled and screamed. Regina buried her face in Emma's shoulder and squeezed harder.

"What the fuck?" Emma blinked. "Where the hell are we?"

Lifting up her head, Regina found Emma's gaze and smiled through her tears. The woman's eyes were bright green. "I promised. No darkness," she sobbed out the words.

"You kept your promise," Emma said. The few words told Regina that they had experienced everything together. "Thank you."

Mindlessly Regina brushed at the flyaway hair around Emma's face, smiled through her tears and kissed Emma's forehead. She was still shaking with her terror. Emma's arms moved around her back. Then Regina felt Emma tuck her face into Regina's shoulder, lips caressing her collarbone.

Emma rolled them onto their sides, nose to nose. Maintaining her contact with green eyes, Regina sighed; her heart thundered so hard in her chest she was unable to catch more than a few shallow breaths for a long time. But under her hands, she felt Emma's heart, pounding as loud and hard as horse's hooves at full run, gradually begin to slow.

When Emma looked away, Regina followed her gaze upward. The sight of the dreamcatcher over the bed made them understand they were in the small cabin.

"Was it a dream?" Emma asked. "Or was it real?"

It certainly had felt real, Regina thought. But she saw no signs around the small cabin of the turbulent portal that she had felt taking them away. The fire was blown out, but the rest of the cabin didn't appear to be out of sorts. "A dream," Regina thought aloud. "What else could it be?"

Emma pulled away from Regina and stumbled as she sorted through clothing on the floor, dressing. "I don't care what time it is. We are leaving now. I want to be back in Storybrooke before another night passes."

"We have to go to Boston, find Lily for Maleficent," Regina said, unmoving from the bed.

Emma dropped her pants and sighed. "And we have to go to New York and tell Robin he's got Zelena on his hands."

Together they said, "It's the right thing to do." Emma's shoulders sagged.

"I think the dream was a warning, too," Regina said.

"Do you remember reading anything about this Taliesin?" Emma asked. "Or a town being incinerated during a raid?"

"No, but we haven't been through every story, and we can't be sure that some of the stories weren't lost since then."

"So, what's the lesson?"

"Vengeance gives succor to the Darkness," Regina repeated Taliesin's words.

"So the way to avoid going dark is to avoid vengeance."

"It might be." Regina sat up. The more she pondered it, it fit. Her own darkness was a quiescent ember, because she had given up her vengeance on Emma, on Snow, on life in general, learning to live with herself as she was: imperfect.

Emma sat down on the bed. She stopped in the middle of putting on her socks.

"What is it?" Regina asked.

"I still owe you a happy ending," Emma said.

Regina remembered her panicked thoughts as she clung to Emma in the other realm. "No, already you brought it."

"But Robin's -"

"Not my happy ending," Regina said. "He is something that was decided for me. My happy ending is in this world."

"It's a big place. You think your happiness is out there somewhere? I'll help you, you know, any way I can." Emma looked away, looking anything but happy that she was offering such help.

Regina shook her head and grabbed Emma's hand, lifting it. "Why did you come with me? You told me you knew I was asking only to keep my promise to your parents about keeping you out of Rumple's plans."

"You wanted me to. For protection."

"You had already given me your gun."

"Would you have been able to shoot it?"

"Not the point."

Emma looked away from Regina's face to their joined hands. "We're friends."

"That means something to you?"

"That means everything to me," Emma admitted, lifting her gaze back up to Regina's.

"Because you want to make up for Lily?"

"No! Yes. No! You matter to me."

Regina smiled. "You matter to me, too."

"Yeah?"

"Yes."

"So, did you just promise my parents to protect me from the Darkness because they asked?"

Regina shook her head. "It may have been reason three or four down the line."

"What were reasons one and two?" Emma asked.

"Well, reason number two...is Henry. He'd be devastated if he lost you."

"And the first reason?" Emma's green eyes glinted in the vague light.

Lifting her chin and swallowing, Regina searched Emma's gaze as she spoke, trying to for a light exasperated tone, but failing miserably. "Well, I'm afraid I'm rather selfish still, Miss Swan. The first reason I wanted to protect you from the darkness is I'd be devastated if I lost you."

"Why?" Emma's lips quirked up in a half-knowing smile. She was going to make Regina say it.

Regina's annoyance was brief, however, because she remembered too clearly, too viscerally, the sight of Emma's dark, dead eyes and the Darkness tearing her apart from inside. She gasped, feeling the devastation begin to take hold anew. "Because, you idiot, I love you!"

"That's a start." Emma leaned forward, tugging on Regina's hands and Regina closed her eyes as their lips met. Emma tenderly brushed their mouths together then pulled away. "That's why I came with you," she murmured, leaning forward to press soft lips to Regina's mouth again.

 **THE END**


End file.
